The purpose of this invention is to describe consolidated grain propellant charges which demonstrate significantly better ignition characteristics than state-of-the-art consolidated grain charges. In the design of devices incorporating a propellant, and particularly those devices that use the burning propellant gases to accomplish mechanical work, such as gun ammunition, a controlled amount of gas and heat must be released within a specified time period by the burning propellant. With existing propellants, for example, those based on nitrocellulose, nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine, and nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine/nitroguanidine, and better known to those practiced in the art as "single base," "double base," and "triple base" propellants, respectively, the burning rate of the propellant is fixed within rather narrow limits by the formulation; a major change in propellant formulation is required to significantly alter such characteristics as the basic burning rate. As a result, to control the release of heat and gas in a device such as a rocket motor chamber, gun chamber, or other gas generating device, the propellant is configured into a sometimes complicated three dimensional geometry, known as a "grain," so that the amount of surface burning at a given time is controlled. The inherent burning rate of the propellant and the grain size and geometry determine the burning rate or "quickness" of the propellant mass. The function sequence of the propellant bed burning can be discussed in terms of two events: (1) ignition of the exterior surface of the grain, and (2) regressive burning of the propellant grain. The first event, ignition, depends on the propagation of a flame front, generated by a priming source and burning of those propellant grains ignited first, through the propellant bed. In a loosely packed bed of individual propellant grains, this flame front propagates easily through the interstitial voids in the bed. Often, however, in the design of devices incorporating such packed granular propellants, it becomes very desirable to package the maximum amount of usable chemical energy (in the form of the unburned propellant) into a minimum amount of space. This reduces the overall volume and therefore packaging weight and space of the device. Toward this end, a method has been developed by those practiced in the art, of consolidating a loosely packed propellant bed into an integral grain, thus reducing the overall volume of the propellant mass. The resulting grain is commonly known as a molded charge, "consolidated charge" or "consolidated grain." The amount of interstitial void volume is, of course, reduced in the volume reduction process, thus rendering it more difficult for the initiating flame front to penetrate the deformed, individual grains comprising the propellant mass. The successful ignition of the individual grains, therefore, critically depends on breakup of the consolidated grain and passage of the flame front through the disintegrating mass. With a consolidated charge, it is desirable to have the consolidated or densified propellant burn as effectively as a loosely packed propellant bed. This invention described consolidated charges, fabricated in a manner analogous to state-of-the-art consolidation procedures, though unique in that they incorporate a burning rate enhancing layer as an initial coating, or as a chemically bound surface layer, on the individual propellant grains, which layer is then dispersed as a uniform matrix throughout the consolidated grain mass. The burning rate enhancer, specifically consisting of selected compounds based on decahydrodecaborate (-2) salts, greatly facilitates propagation of the initiating flame front through the propellant mass and breakup of the consolidated grain. The specific burn-rate enhancers taught herein have been found to be unusually effective in promoting the break-up of the individual grains which were deformed together by the consolidation. The charges described by this invention therefore demonstrate significantly better ignition and burning characteristics than similar state-of-the-art consolidated grains at ambient temperature; the improvement is even more marked at low temperature.